Brunei hosts regional WHO conference
Health conference: Deputy Health Minister, Pehin Dato Hj Awg Hazair, attends the launching of the WHO Regional Outbreak Communication Conference Ceremony and Welcoming Dinner at the Empire Hotel and Country Club. Picture: Zamri Zainal
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
BRUNEI Darussalam is hosting to the World Health Organisation (WHO) Regional Outbreak Communications Conference this year, held at the International Convention Centre (ICC) for the next three days starting from today.
Health Minister Pehin Orang Kaya Indera Pahlawan Dato Seri Setia Haji Suyoi Haji Osman officiated the conference last night at the opening ceremony and welcoming dinner held at the Empire Hotel and Country Club.
Overseas delegates, representatives from the WHO secretariat as well as officials from the WHO headquarters, and other officials from the United States and Singapore were among the guests at last night's ceremony who have come to Brunei to participate in the conference, which is a collaborative event between WHO Western Pacific Regional Office and Brunei's Ministry of Health.
The collaboration was proposed during the ASEAN Health Ministers meeting in Da Nang, Vietnam, last year where it was agreed that the issue of risk and outbreak communication in the region should be further developed.
The three-day conference will feature a series of workshops and provide a platform where the participants can facilitate network building and explore ways in which Member States can work within the sphere of outbreak communication.
It will also serve to increase regional capacity by building outbreak communication capacity within countries in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) region and also allow for better communication across borders during the event of an outbreak.
In the speech by the director of the division of combating communicable diseases at WHO Regional Office for the Western Pacific, Dr Tee Ah Sian spoke of Brunei Darussalam's exemplary communicable disease control and hopes that the conference will give the sultanate an opportunity to share this expertise with other countries within the state region.
Pehin Haji Suyoi, in his speech, stated that the occurrences of numerous outbreaks in past centuries, such as Anthrax and SARS, has highlighted the urgent need for existing systems to be reviewed and updated.
In this regard, Pehin Haji Suyoi expressed appreciation for the revision of the International Health Regulation in 2005, which came into force in June this year, and the development of the Asia Pacific Strategy on Emerging Diseases (APSED) as a guiding tool which enables Member States to plan and develop an approach to fulfilling the core capacity in a rational, systematic and effective manner.
Risk communication, one of the five key areas of APSED, is the subject matter of the three-day conference and is a complex, multidisciplinary, multidimensional, evolving process of increasing importance in protecting public health.
Participants will be able to obtain first hand observation on how to apply the art of academic communication model into an integrated component of disease prevention and control during a pandemic and other emerging health threats.
Participants consist of high-level communication decision-makers, specifically those dealing with infectious diseases, Ministry of Health public information and communication officers, and government communication officers.
Forty-eight delegates from 12 countries (Brunei, Cambodia, China, Japan, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Mongolia, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Republic of Korea, Singapore and Vietnam), as well as 30 observers from various government agencies in Brunei, attended the ceremony last night and will also be attending the conference.
The Brunei Times
Health Minister Pehin Orang Kaya Indera Pahlawan Dato Seri Setia Haji Suyoi Haji Osman officiated the conference last night at the opening ceremony and welcoming dinner held at the Empire Hotel and Country Club.
Overseas delegates, representatives from the WHO secretariat as well as officials from the WHO headquarters, and other officials from the United States and Singapore were among the guests at last night's ceremony who have come to Brunei to participate in the conference, which is a collaborative event between WHO Western Pacific Regional Office and Brunei's Ministry of Health.
The collaboration was proposed during the ASEAN Health Ministers meeting in Da Nang, Vietnam, last year where it was agreed that the issue of risk and outbreak communication in the region should be further developed.
The three-day conference will feature a series of workshops and provide a platform where the participants can facilitate network building and explore ways in which Member States can work within the sphere of outbreak communication.
It will also serve to increase regional capacity by building outbreak communication capacity within countries in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) region and also allow for better communication across borders during the event of an outbreak.
In the speech by the director of the division of combating communicable diseases at WHO Regional Office for the Western Pacific, Dr Tee Ah Sian spoke of Brunei Darussalam's exemplary communicable disease control and hopes that the conference will give the sultanate an opportunity to share this expertise with other countries within the state region.
Pehin Haji Suyoi, in his speech, stated that the occurrences of numerous outbreaks in past centuries, such as Anthrax and SARS, has highlighted the urgent need for existing systems to be reviewed and updated.
In this regard, Pehin Haji Suyoi expressed appreciation for the revision of the International Health Regulation in 2005, which came into force in June this year, and the development of the Asia Pacific Strategy on Emerging Diseases (APSED) as a guiding tool which enables Member States to plan and develop an approach to fulfilling the core capacity in a rational, systematic and effective manner.
Risk communication, one of the five key areas of APSED, is the subject matter of the three-day conference and is a complex, multidisciplinary, multidimensional, evolving process of increasing importance in protecting public health.
Participants will be able to obtain first hand observation on how to apply the art of academic communication model into an integrated component of disease prevention and control during a pandemic and other emerging health threats.
Participants consist of high-level communication decision-makers, specifically those dealing with infectious diseases, Ministry of Health public information and communication officers, and government communication officers.
Forty-eight delegates from 12 countries (Brunei, Cambodia, China, Japan, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Mongolia, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Republic of Korea, Singapore and Vietnam), as well as 30 observers from various government agencies in Brunei, attended the ceremony last night and will also be attending the conference.
The Brunei Times
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